As of July 2009, Dadaab refugee complex52 - comprising of Hagadera, Dagahaley, Ifo 1 and Ifo2 - was recorded as being the world‘s largest refugee camp.53 It comprises of majority Somalis with almost all clans represented. Others include South Sudanese, Ethiopians, Ugandans, Congolese, Burundians and Eritreans54. This, therefore, implies that Kenya is one of the countries in the world with one of the world‘s largest refugee burdens. I was motivated to carry out the study as part of my contribution in suggesting a more refugee driven debate on repatriation. Although repatriation lessens the refugee burden to the host state and the international community, it is hoped that this could be successfully done without infringing on the rights of refugees to voluntary repatriation.
52 https://www.unhcr.org/ke/dadaab-refugee-complex.
53P. Kirui, and J. Mwaruvie, ‗The dilemma of hosting refugees: A focus on the insecurity in north-eastern Kenya‘, International Journal of Business and Social Science, vol.3 no.8, 2012, p.165
54 https://www.unhcr.org/ke/figures-at-a-glance
20 Secondly, the Dadaab complex in Kenya represents one of the protracted conflicts in Africa having been established in 1991 after the fall of Siad Barre. The international community‘s engagement with refugees has since the 1990‘s focused largely on mass influx situations and refugee emergencies, and encouraging large-scale repatriation programmes in high-profile regions55. In stark contrast, over two-thirds of refugees in the world today are not in emergency situations, but instead trapped in protracted refugee situations56.This therefore means that researchers, academics and policy-makers should give more attention to protracted refugee situations and not just refugees in emergencies and during large influxes. This study, therefore, is timely as it focuses on a protracted refugee situation with a view to building more sustainable refugee repatriation.
Thirdly, the physical security problems that Kenya has faced in the recent past, notably the WestGate Mall Attack in 2013 in Nairobi and the Garissa University attack in 2015has consolidated the perception that Dadaab refugee camps are being used as a training ground and hideout57 for Somali terror militants. Studies by Kirui and Mwaruvie58and
55Since the 1990‘s, the international community has focused largely on refugee emergencies in high profile regions such as the Balkans, the Great Lakes region of Africa and more recently Darfur(Sudan), Chad and Syria. These regions are known to produce millions of refugees. See UN, ‗Protracted refugee situations:
Millions caught in limbo, with no solution in sight‘, available at
www.un.org/events/tenstories/06/print.asp?storyID=2600(accessed 28 November 2017)
56 G. Loescher et al, ‗Introduction‘, Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, human rights and security implications, New York, United Nations University Press, 2008,p.3
57The Guardian, ‗World‘s largest refugee camp scapegoated in wake of Garissa attack‘ 14 April 2015 Available at www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/kenya-garissa-dadaab-scapegoat-al- shabaab(accessed 28 November 2017).The Government of Kenya had termed Dadaab refugee camp ‗a nursery for Al Shabaab‘, before calling for its immediate closure.
21 that of Kiswii59among others, have maintained that amass influx of Somali refugees could have negatively affected Kenya‘s physical security. In this case the relationship between international refugee flows and national security can be understood as a social construct whereby discourses and practices have shifted refugee flows from a humanitarian idea to a security-oriented idea. Because of this perceived threat, Kenyan anti-terrorist operations have targeted non-nationals, including Somali refugees, perceived by them as a source of terrorism.60 The Government‘s concerns are that terrorists can camouflage themselves as refugees to enter the country and, in so doing, they can hide their activities including those that target refugees for recruitment. Some groups, such as the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation61, Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya62 which have links with Al-Qaeda63, were carrying out humanitarian work in Somali refugee
58P. Kirui and J. Mwaruvie, ‗The dilemma of hosting refugees: A focus on the insecurity in north-eastern Kenya‘, International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol.3.no.8.p163.
59 E. Kiswii, ‗Refugee Influx and (In)security: Kenya‘s experience,1991-2012‘, Masters Thesis, University of Nairobi,2013.p.11
60 Amnesty International The Impact of Antiterrorism Operations on Human Rights, (Washington DC:
Amnesty International,).2005
61 A charity foundation based in Saudi Arabia that later became a major source of funds to the terrorist groups. It was listed by United Nations Security Council as terrorist group on 13 March 2002. Available www.un.org/sc/suborg/en/sanctions/1267/aq_sanctions_list/summaries/entity/al-haramain-islamic- foundation-(bosnia-and(accessed 29 November 2017) See also E. Kiswii, ‗Refugee Influx and (In)security:
Kenya‘s experience, 1991-2012‘, Masters Thesis, University of Nairobi, 2013.p.5
62It is an Islamist militant group in Somalia. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand. It seeks to establish Islamic caliphates based on strict Islamic Sharia law. Available https://fas.org/irp/world/para/ogadin.htm(accessed 29 November 2017)
63 It is a militant Sunni Islamist multinational organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam and several other Arab volunteers who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.After the Cold War the group seem to be pushing for the establishment of Islamic states based on strict Islamic Sharia law. Available at www.un/sc/suborg/en/sanctions/1267/fact-sheet-on-updating-list
22 camps where they have established close links with the Somali refugees consequently smuggling dangerous weapons to Kenya via the Kenya-Somali border.64
Yet, despite all this, a permanent solution for protracted refugee situations must be sort. It is not acceptable, as former High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said in 2001, that refugees spend years of their lives in confined areas.65 Yet the political failure to find durable solutions for refugees lead to precisely the kinds of protracted situations that degrades the displaced. Unable to return to their homeland, settle permanently in their country of first asylum or move to a third state, many refugees find themselves confined indefinitely to camps or holding areas, often in volatile border zones.66Such restrictive conditions are a denial of rights under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention67 and a waste of human talent.68Furthermore, the prevalence in prolonged refugee situations of idleness, aid- dependency, a legacy of conflict and weak rule of law can induce fresh cycles of violence,
64G. Loescher and J. Milner (eds.), Protracted Refugee Situations, Domestic and International Security Implications, London: IISS, 2008)41. E. Kiswii, ‗Refugee Influx and (In)security: Kenya‘s experience, 1991- 2012‘, Master Thesis, University of Nairobi, 2013.p.5-6
65R. Lubbers, High Commissioner for Refugees, Statement to the European Conference on Migration, Brussels, 2001.
66J. Crisp, ‗No Solutions in Sight? The Problem of Protracted Refugee Situations in Africa‘, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 75, UNHCR, Geneva, 2003.
67The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of refugees is the centerpiece of international refugee protection. The Convention entered into force on 22 April 1954 and it has been subjected to only one amendment in the form of a 1967 Protocol, which removed the geographic and temporal limits of the 1951 Convention. Among its notable principles is that of non-discrimination, non-penalization and non- refoulement. The Convention defines a refugee as ‗a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reason of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of the country‘.
68M. Smith, ‗Warehousing Refugees: A Denial of Rights, a Waste of Humanity‘, World Refugee Survey, 2004, pp. 40–1.
23 threatening human security.69 In this regard, it is imperative that the search for durable solutions be intensified.70
It is against this backdrop that the Government of Kenya intensified calls for repatriation of Somali refugees in Dadaab, Northeastern Kenya culminating in the signing of the Tripartite Agreement (TA) signed between Government of Kenya, FGS and UNHCR, as a roadmap for the repatriation of Somali refugees. The need to establish the roles, contributions and aspirations of Somali refugees in the TA motivated the study with a view to capture the views of ordinary Somali refugees in this process of repatriation.